Owls’ upset hopes end with USD rally

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Published 6:38 pm, Sunday, March 15, 2015

Filip Vittek of San Diego fought back from a 4-1 deficit in the decisive third set to thwart an upset bid by the Rice men’s team and give the 31st ranked Toreros a tense 4-3 win over the Owls at the George R. Brown Tennis Center on Sunday. The dual was held concurrently with a women’s dual vs. Memphis at the Owls new home for tennis.

“I’m very proud of the way we competed today,” Rice head coach Efe Ustundag said. “We represented Rice well against one of the top teams in the country. This is a good team, one that team played the #1 team in the country (USC) down to the wire last weekend.”

After USD jumped to a 1-0 lead by grabbing the doubles point, the Owls responded to a reminder by Ustundag and mounted a serious upset bid.

“The message to them before singles was to make better decisions and make it a little more about using what your opponent gives you instead of focusing on what we can and cannot do,” Ustundag said. “I thought the guys did a great job in doing that. The decision making was a lot cleaner and we avoided a lot of mental mistakes.”

San Diego made that comeback more daunting by building a 3-0 lead with wins on courts one and three, but David Warren provided the first point for Rice with a straight set win on court five.

Freshman Jamie Malik was in position to post a second point in straight sets after taking the first set from Vittek and holding a 5-3 lead in the second set. But the 81st ranked Vittek rallied to force a tiebreak, which he won 7-0 to force the first of three third sets on the remaining three courts.

Adam Gustafsson suffered a similar 7-0 tiebreak loss in his first set on court four, but rebounded to take his second set 7-5 and move on to a third while Gustavo Gonzalez ground out a 10-8 win in a second-set tiebreak to also extend his match to a third set.

Gustafsson continued his momentum in the third set, building a 4-1 lead before Romain Kalaydjian retired with an injury. “Adam has been struggling lately and really needed a win,” Ustundag said. “He dug deep, especially after that bad loss in the first set tiebreaker and battled one out.”

In their third sets, both Malik and Gonzalez opened with 3-0 leads before being broken in their fourth games. Each responded with breaks of their own in the fifth games to extend their leads to 4-1, but while Gonzalez surged from the break to win his decided set 6-1, Malik could not maintain his momentum as Vittek recovered to take the third set and clinch the match.

The win for Gonzalez was his fifth consecutive dual victory. “Gustavo is doing a great job and really playing well right now,” Ustundag said. “This was a very physical match for him. He showed great composure in some key moments.”

Ustundag said he was proud of the effort the Owls put forth on Sunday.

“It’s just a shame that things did not go our way. We’re doing a lot of things right. We are so close to getting things rolling and meeting our potential as a team. We’re battling to get that one clutch win.”